February is over, and March has started with Siberian winds, sub-zero temperatures and blizzards from the Atlantic courtesy of Storm Emma. Meteorological Spring may have started on 1 March, but I think we can expect to wait until the Equinox for things to get properly Spring-y.

So what happened in February, you ask? Lots, I reply!

In 'The Horde's Engine Room - Episode III', The Horde from The New Jacobin Club did a nice review of 'Airships & Automata', a collection including my short story 'Tommy's Game', which was singled out for particular praise. Plus LM Cooke music got a bit of outro-time, too!

I also got a bit of air-play for some LM Cooke music on the #GASP and The Slab radio shows.

I also visited Avebury, a village encompassed by the world's largest prehistoric stone circle. This was the first time I've been to Avebury - but I'll be back (hotel already booked for later in the year...)

And I even managed a meet-up with the West Midlands Steampunk Assembly, on a charity shop crawl through Stourbridge and Halesowen.

Pictoral evidence of the above is below. March will see the first LM Cooke music gigs of the year - assuming that the snow finally goes, and these bloody penguins head off back to Antartica...

Monday is normally blogging day because I don't have to work at a 'proper job' on a Monday (before anyone accuses me of being a jammy git, I do work full time at a 'proper job' - I just squash five days into four to give me an extra day for writing/ music etc).Today I have had to go into work. It was horribly frosty on the way in. It was horribly rainy on the way home. It was basically horrible. Here is a short and silly poem to illustrate how bad a working Monday really is....

If Monday had an occupation,A ninja would be the job.Hear it giggle with elationAs a shuriken it lobs

A master of disguiseWhen it creeps up behind you.Though you'll soon find out its thereWhen you feel its nunchaku...

...Bash you in the earAnd you'll soon call for your mamaWhen Monday shows its teethAnd draws its steel katana

Yes, Monday is a killerMerciless and cruelI ain't goin' to no work next Monday,You can't make me, crazy fool!

With apologies to Mr T and any actual poets out there. Move over, Pam Ayres!

I have my own personal horsemen. They are harbingers of doom - of my private apocalypse

Famine rides in as the last of the xmas rations is nommed. I may have to cook. Shield yourselves.

Pestilence follows soon behind. Yes, that's right, snot funny at all - the lurgy is returned and this time it means business.

War is next as I do battle with several centuries worth of cardboard boxes 'stored' in the garage. Centuries, weeks, they are very similar timescales. Which brings me on to my last horseman:

Death of time... someone has set the dogs on time. Someone has set it running faster, so fast it can never be stopped. The corpses of dead, desiccated hours litter its path. Seconds scream as they die minutely. Or secondly. Time is gone. Mourn its loss. Even list making cannot save you...

Firstly, may I apologise for a few weeks of Blog silence. You may be delighted to hear that such silences should now be past, as I am in the home strait for handing in my final piece of work for my history Masters degree - namely, that dissertation on Victorian prostitution! One more week, and it will all be over...

In the meantime, I was asked a question this week. Fear not, gentle reader, nothing untoward, but something I thought might interest your good selves as you enjoy this seasonably sunny September sTuesday (sorry, I should have posted this at the weekend to maintain the alliteration really).

Steampunk fashion.

Steampunk, you see, is loosely based on Victorian aesthetics, Victorian manners (though not necessarily values!), and to some extent, steampunk clothing usually exhibits some sort of Victorian element. However, my interrogator wondered, why did some ladies of steampunk wear such short skirts? Surely in Victorian times, revealing even an inch of ankle might have marked you out as one of the very ladies I am currently writing about in my dissertation!

This is, of course, absolutely correct, and no self-respecting Victorian lady would have dreamed of being seen in public without full skirts, hats and full ensemble. Indeed, there are records of a respected and respectable lady writer being arrested one evening because of her dress - by foregoing her bonnet and gloves, she had given the arresting officer the impression that she must indeed be a 'nymph of the pave'.

But times change, and so do fashions, and of course what was acceptable at the beginning of Victoria's reign had changed by the middle of it, and had changed again by the end. Who would have dreamed, when that slip of a princess took the throne, that in her lifetime, women would be wearing bloomerswithout a skirt over the top!

Oh yes indeed. By the end of the 19th Century, those racy lady cyclists were pedaling merrily down the streets, bereft of skirts that might tangle in chains and cause a nasty accident. The bicycle gave ladies freedom to go out unescorted (there was a time when there were no public toilets for ladies, so housebound were they!), and bloomers gave them the freedom to ride their bicycles in comfort.

Fashion has often moved to accommodate the needs of the wearer. When women did not go out alone, huge dresses and trained skirts were if not practical, then at least acceptable. In the century before Victoria, when women had more freedom, clothing was much less restrictive. And in the century after, the Wars required women to work at occupations previously considered exclusively masculine, and clothing once again adapted to suit.

So my reasoning for short skirts in steampunk follows similar lines. Steampunk isn't Victorian reenactment - it takes elements of Victoriana and reinterprets them, as if history had developed in a different way. For many steampunks, the role of women, for one, is not at all the same as it would have been in Victorian times. Steampunk women can be adventurers, aviators, inventors, and many other things, without opposition. It stands to reason, then, that just as fashion did not stand still for Victorian women, neither would it for steampunk women - and a short skirt is so much easier to get around in than a full skirt with bustle and train.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it! What do you think?

(Please excuse all the photos of ME ME ME, by the way, it's just the easiest way of knowing I'm not impinging anyone's copyright!)(Plus you get to admire my needlework on two of them, ahem).

That's right, there's a few things to update you on this week, so let's see how we go...

Shameless Plug...

... for Sunday's gig at theBlack Country Steam-o-Rama at The Griffin, 8 Stone Street, Dudley, DY1 1NS, from 5pm, Sunday 20th July - FREE ENTRYReasons you should attend:

It's a nice early finish, so you'll still be able to get up for work in the morning

Crimson Clocks will be doing some more recording for a video - and we'd like you to take part with your own recording!*

There will be tea dueling**, hosted by me and ably abetted by Mr Steven C. Davis as biscuit wallah

There will be opportunity to purchase books written by Mr Davis and myself, just in time to take away with you on your summer holidays.

There will be other stalls, including Sparkles By Gem, Steampunk Relics, and Clare's Prints, with shiny things available

There will be music from BB Blackdog as well as Crimson Clocks

There will be a lovely steampunk burlesque performance from Steam Tease

It's FREE Entry! That's FREE!

*Videoing - we are making a video for our song, Shadow. When we play it, we'd like YOU to film a clip of yourself watching, and us playing, and send it to us. Doesn't have to be high quality, or even very long. We'll then merge them all together to make a video so that we can be watching you watching us watching you watching us.... send clips to CrimsonClocks@CrimsonClocks.com, please! And include your name!** tea dueling - a ferocious face-off between dashing duelists - the terror of the high teas! Face your opponent over a malted milk biscuit. Do you have the nerve?? Open to all...

A more worthy plug...

...for Southcart Books, who, you'll remember hosted a book reading only the other week - see my blog from last week. Southcart are the only independent bookseller for miles around, and they are looking for ways to help them stay around. So they've set up a crowdfunder to try to fund improvements to the shop and help to keep it a community venue, with events for local people, and accessible to all. You can read more here and there's also a facebook event here.

Taken from the Express and Star, Monday 7th July 2014

Up, up and away...

...in a helicopter, no less, was what I was doing last weekend! Is there no end to my jet-set lifestyle? (yes there is). A helicopter pleasure flight over Berkshire and surrounds enabled me to capture some in-flight pics, some of which may be appearing in a 'mystery' project later this year... watch this space.As to the helicopter flight itself, it was a great experience, taking us towards Farnborough Airfield, close enough to London that we could see The Shard, plus over lots of very posh houses and other things. A word to the wise, though - when the helicopter banks, hold onto your stomach. Eep!

Me mid-flight

Helicopter in flight (me not on it)

The view from 1000ft up at 125mph

Right, that's it for now, back to the dissertation work we go... stay vigilant!

Author

I'm a writer of steampunk/ fantasy fiction, singer/musician and writer at LM Cooke Music, singer in the parody band Mediaeval Biaetches, occasional historian, and co-presenter of the Gothic Alternative Steampunk and Progressive web radio show. Here I will ramble vaguely about stuff. Friends, countrymen, and people who aren't countrymen, lend me your ears...